Road Trippin – Day 2 – Ballina to Dorrigo

Day 2 didn’t get off to the best start as planned. The night before the owner of the Colonial Motel in Ballina suggested I park my Indian Chief Vintage motorcycle in his newly built garage for security reasons. He was right, it was a good idea, but then we got talking about motorcycles and I forgot to mention to him that I’d be leaving at 8am!! This turned out to be a problem because he only opens the reception at 8am, which meant I had to wait till 8am for him to open the garage for me to get my motorcycle!! So, I ended up leaving at 9:30am by which time the weather was starting to warm up, traffic getting busy and I had to ride for five and a half hours to get to my next destination – the Lookout Mountain Retreat.

My ride started at Ballina and then on to Lismore, Casino, Grafton, Nymboida and finally Dorrigo. The ride through the state forests between Casino and Grafton was the highlight with 99 kms of blissful motorcycle riding and not a lot of traffic. If only the weather was a little cooler it would have been perfect. Well, at least it didn’t rain!

I must admit I’m not a big fan of windy roads and definitely not on the Indian Chief Vintage. This motorcycle prefers open highways where you just sit back and cruise. Personally I dislike having to change gears so often on a bike this big!

But when you’ve got views this good, who cares right??

I’m absolutely in love with nature and the outdoors. I believe I get this from my Dad who is an avid fisherman and in his day used to do a bit of hunting too. The freedom to head out and leave the busy career circus behind is great.

Well, that’s about it from me for today. Tomorrow I’m off to Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia where I will be spending three nights and will usher in the new year. Let’s hope it’s going to be a rippa!! 😎

Have a good one, chat soon…<< p>< /p>

Derek Halstead is a SharePoint consultant as well as the founder and principal of CertifiedSolutionsAustralia.com and CoolWriteups.com. He has 16 years of experience in the IT industry, with over ten years focused on Microsoft SharePoint. He can be reached by using the Contact Me link in the top menu.